As an entrepreneur, my first rule in business is not paying for something unless I can precisely articulate what returns I will be getting back. This rule prevents me from throwing money at problems – and there are many unexpected problems that spring up when a startup gets going.
I have paid as much as $70K and as low as $4K for a patent draft. There is obviously a range of services and rates in the market. How does one know what and how much to pay for? In following my first rule in business, I always start with minimizing my cost in protecting my idea. This is typically a provisional patent application in the US (note the provisional rules in Canada are different). It is something that I can pay for with my credit card (a couple of hundred dollars) and it provides “a call option” on the idea for a year. Since the provisional is not published, you can put in whatever information you have but make sure the idea is sufficiently disclosed. All of the provisional patents that I have submitted have been research papers. In reflection, I suppose there were other ideas (extensions of the research) that I could have described in writing and be able to submit them provisionally but then I would have to carefully carve out prior art (which takes research and requires documenting later). In my low cost approach, I would submit an accepted paper because some committee of scientists would have provided a peer review on the research and that would suffice to ensure that I have something that is novel and useful. I have never put claims alongside the papers submitted because they often need to be reworked in the actual draft but it doesn’t mean you can’t.
Please contact me for any feedbacks, experiences or questions.
